ditions. It has received the warm approval, not only of the 

 Secretary of the Interior and National Park Service but, 

 of architects and gardeners and botanists of international 

 authority and reputation. 



Among them all, none has said a better word of hopeful- 

 ness and encouragement regarding it than the writer of the 

 letter — ^written in the earlier stages of the undertaking — with 

 which this paper closes, Mr. C. Grant LaFarge of New York, 

 a director of the American Institute of Architects, trustee and 

 secretary of the American Academy at Rome, an architect of 

 wide experience who has made a lifelong study also of our 

 native flora and these garden plants. 



George B. Dorr. 



Dear George: — 



The papers which you have asked me to examine, setting forth the 

 project for developing a wild-Hfe sanctuary and tree and plant exhibit 

 and experiment station on Mount Desert Island, seem to me to 

 describe a plan of comprehensive and striking interest. You ask me 

 to tell you what I think of it. It appeals to me on so many sides 

 that I can hardly deal with them all. As one long concerned with 

 the question of preserving our native fauna in the only effective ways, 

 such as game refuges and laws protecting migratory species, there is 

 much I should like to say on this phase of the scheme as well as on its 

 splendid aspect as a permanent great natural pleasure ground for 

 many people. But these I must pass by to emphasize a specific 

 point which strikes me forcibly, in view of my professional convictions. 



Our community is aware but dimly, and in spots, of the tremendous 

 strides being made in the art of architecture in America. Only those 

 who, with open minds and trained eyes, contrast the body of our 

 performance with its current equivalent in the Old World can appre- 

 ciate it, and realize that it is cause, not for boasting but, for ardent 

 hope and constantly greater effort. Many forces are at work, among 

 them none stronger than the rapid and sure elevation and increase of 

 our educational methods. 



Along with our architectural advance must go that of the sister 

 art of landscape design. There is no need for me to point out to you 

 the intimacy of the alliance or the urgent necessity that equipment 

 for the practice of the latter be, both theoretically and practically, 

 of the fullest. 



No constructive art can achieve its full development while those 

 who practice it think in terms of its expression upon paper, and not 

 in terms of the materials they have to use. There is only one way 

 to gain the power to use these materials; that is, to have a close 

 and comprehensive personal acquaintance with them. The more we 



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